“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” That is what House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, told his fellow Republicans last night. And apparently one of the things that Boehner now knows he cannot change is the willingness of some conservatives in his caucus to compromise on anything.

At 7:45 pm last night, Boehner informed his Republican colleagues that he did not have the votes necessary to pass his Plan B solution to the fiscal cliff crisis. “The House did not take up the tax measure today because it did not have sufficient support from our members to pass,” the official Boehner statement read.